Consistency: The Difference Between Failure and Success

So you’ve set your Action Plan and defined your goal or goals….what’s next?

Consistency

You can have the best action plan in place with the loftiest goals but if you don’t have consistency…well…from experience, you’re not going to get there.

What do I mean by consistency? The best example I can think of is Michael Phelps. He is the most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals and stills holds several world records. What brought him there? Consistency.

When he was asked what was it that was behind the successes he had had during all those years he was swimming? He mentioned being consistent in his training. His training was pretty much the same thing every day. From the time he got up to train in the pool to going to sleep, one thing always was present: consistency.

How does that apply to Business?

Within a business context, consistency is defined as the ability of a business to provide a great customer experience through it’s services or products.

If you provide that consistent experience, clients will not only return but continue to work with you and even more importantly, talk to others about that experience.

Consistency also allows you to do several things that are congruent to successfully achieving your goals:

It Allows Measurements:

If you do things a certain way over a period of time, let’s say 6 months, it will give you the opportunity to see if it works or not. Now granted, you may not want to wait that long to figure this out but it definitely allows you to measure your actions.

Your Message is Always The Same And Clear:

Imagine if you changed your Business Mission Statement every week; you’d be hard pressed to be reminded by your customers as well people you work with that consistency in that regards would do you much more service than not.

You become Accountable:

You’ve set your Action Plan and Goals for a set period of time and by making sure you’re consistent in those actions you put down in writing, you’ve made yourself accountable to that.

It Establishes your Reputation:

For your business to grow, you need to show some sort of track record. If you’re changing from one shinny object to another or if you’re changing tactics all the time, you can’t do that. You need to stay the course so that you can achieve your goal.

Consistency Doesn’t Mean Boring

Someone might be tempted to think that being consistent is the equivalent of being boring or a robot! Doing the same things over and over again might lead you to think that but, in all sincerity, being in business does mean that some things are repetitive.

Having said that, if that consistency is bringing more revenue to your business, I say bring it on! If you know something is working then you don’t need to change it. Having said that, you might be in a better position to tweak some things in your operations – without having to change everything.

How Having A Mission Statement Can Actually Help

We’ve heard them from all these different companies, Apple, Coca-Cola, Google, etc… They all have one. Now, you need to make sure that you understand that there is a difference between a statement you hear during an ad on the radio or tv and the Mission Statement of a company.

Your Mission Statement should be short and concise. Most have 1 to 3 phrases and it is definitely a great asset in defining your business to potential clients.

Your mission statement generally has 3 components:

The Purpose: Clearly defines the purpose of your business.

Values: This part should define what you believe in and, if you have staff, how will you treat those who work for you and how are they expected to treat customers, suppliers, etc.

Goals & Objectives: What does your business want to achieve and deliver to its customers? That can include excellent customer service or superior quality items.

When you look at your Mission Statement and your Action Plan, if you put all of these together and work consistently with these in mind, your road to success is not only best assured; you also remove a lot of the potential ineffective misdirection that will happen on a day-to-day basis when running a business – even more so when it’s a small business with a smaller number of employees or if you’re alone.

With this in mind, time to get your Mission Statement written and become consistent in your day-to-day actions!

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To your success…to our success!